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| I created the drawing in Google Docs, saved it as a JPG, then edited it a little further using Picnik. |
Working at Learning Web Tools
Mentor Sentence Monday: Nicola Davies
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| Amazon Link |
The following are sentences from Bat Loves the Night:
Bat shouts as she flies, louder than a hammer blow, higher than a squeak. She beams her voice around her like a flashlight, and the echoes come singing back.The following sentences were generated using Davies' words as my model:
Cat wails as he wonders, louder than a baby, deeper than screech. He vibrates his voice like a bad opera singer, and the other cats join in.
Roxy Gives Great Advice!
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| Roxy is my early morning writing buddy. Now she has a voice! Check out my Voki and hear what Roxy has to say about starting a blog. Way too fun! |
One Little Word Wednesday: Thread
I have been spending lots of time learning what about Google Docs.
Last weekend, I excitedly explained to my husband that I had figured out how to
link documents to one another and was in the process of creating a reading
conference form that could be used on an iPad. His eyes glazed over as his jaw
hung open slightly. His indifference to my interests didn't trouble me in the
least. In fact, I have found if I want him to stop bothering me, all I have to
do is start a sentence with, “Guess what I figured out that I can do in Google
Docs!” He immediately leaves the room. I can’t help it if I find learning how
to use forms and spreadsheets more stimulating than watching him sit in the
green chair as he watches re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond. I guess we are
both pretty boring. Not sure what this has to do with thread other than I’ve
been trying to figure out how all of the new learning I’ve been doing will impact my teaching, impact my daily life. I’m just trying to thread it all
together. And writing about it helps.
Desperation
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| Image from Microsoft Word, edited in Picnik. |
I started
hearing the helicopters circling our neighborhood about 5:00 am Monday morning.
My husband left for work about 6:30 but then returned just as my son was to get
on the bus. He informed me that there were several police cars in the area and
he suspected that they were on the hunt for someone or something. I wanted my almost 15-year-old son to wait in the car with me as we watched for the bus but he told me I was silly for worrying. I didn't really think he was in danger but I also didn't like the idea of him standing outside by himself. After my son got on the bus, I left for school. I arrived at 7:05 and the
director of the before school child care program met me at the door. There were
no other teachers in the building. She told me that there had been an armed robbery
at a nearby Sunoco station and the police were looking for the suspect. Armed . . .
meaning gun. How could this have happened so close to my school,
so close to my home? I couldn't imagine ever being so desperate as to wave a gun in someone's face and demand money. How would I feel if I had been the clerk behind the cash register? Later in the day, details about the suspect were reported: white,
male, early 60’s, 5’ 8”, 200 lbs, beard stubble, wearing dark clothes. The police
have not found him yet but they don’t believe he is still in the area, whatever
that means. So if he isn't around here, where is he?
Mentor Sentence Monday: More Cynthia Rylant
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| Amazon Link |
One of my
favorite books by Cynthia Rylant is An Angel for Solomon Singer. I love the unapologetic
way she weaves the story of a lonely man’s life. Her words are simple and
direct and beautiful. Several places in the book Rylant describes her character
by what he doesn’t have or doesn’t like which is a technique that kids can imitate
and will quickly change up the flow of their writing and add voice to their pieces. It is also a way of describing that young writers can use when
writing across genres and in all content areas.
The
following sentences are Cynthia Rylant’s:
His room had no balcony (he dreamed of beautiful balconies). It had no fireplace (and he knew he would think better sitting before a fireplace). It had no porch swing for napping and no picture for watching the birds.
The
following are sentences I generated using Rylant’s words as inspiration:
Her office had no window (she dreamed of the warmth of natural light). It had no way to control the temperature (and she knew she would think better without shivering). It had no filing cabinet and no bookcase for all of her books.
One Little Word Wednesday: Thread
Today I meet with the other literacy coaches and consultants
from our district. It is a day of study, reflection, and idea sharing. We also
eat chocolate and vent. Coaching can be a lonely position and having the
opportunity to talk freely with other coaches without fear that what we say to
each other will be repeated is critical to our survival both
professionally and personally. In the past, the bond that we formed was supported, if not encouraged. This was never a group of people that competed with
each other or controlled each other. Our conversations have ranged from big
global thinking to sharing little teaching tips. The assumption has been that we all have important pieces to offer, different perspectives. And we question ourselves. We know that we can't ignore evidence and there is always more to learn. We use what we observe about our district, our schools, our teachers, and our children to guide our
study. We discuss state and national literacy trends and the politics that
influence how schools are funded. We read. We write. We use our own literacy processing
to improve instructional models and create lessons. The threads of our thinking
wind and weave. These days of coming together have been a gift.
Not Funny Until Later
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| Sam started dancing when she was three. |
My husband
and I planned to travel to Bowling Green on Saturday to see our daughter, Sam, perform in a
dance concert. During the day, we got about two inches of blowing snow. He
decided we should drive my car to the performance. I warned my husband not to open the driver’s
side door because it wouldn't shut if it got too cold out. He looked at me like I was
nuts misinformed. I had actually told him about the door several weeks ago but
since we hadn’t had much icy weather, it hadn’t been a problem. By the time we
arrived in BG, the wind chill had dipped into the teens. Walking through the
parking lot and up the stairs of Kobacker Hall brought back memories of trudging
across that flat open campus, in the whipping wind, cutting through buildings
along the way to warm up. After the
concert, we planned to take my daughter and her friend back to the dorm. I told
the girls that they had to climb in through the passenger side back door
because there was something wrong with the other door. My husband decided he
should warm up the car and bring it closer to the entrance so the girls could
hop in the back.
While waiting for the car, I enjoyed listening to my daughter chatter with the other dancers. My
husband texted that the car was ready and we headed out. And there he stood, in the blowing snow, slamming the back door over and over, trying to get it to close. He looked at me, mouth agape. I looked at him and shook my head. I told Sam to try to hold the door shut from the inside as we drove back to the
dorm. The girls thought the whole situation was wildly comical. I did not. After
dropping Sam off, we found a car wash, warmed up the door, and got the darn
thing shut. About halfway home, it all seemed a lot funnier.
Mentor Sentence Monday: Cynthia Rylant
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| Word cloud created using text from When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant. |
Rylant’s
words:
When I was young in the mountains, we walked across the cow pasture and through the woods, carrying our towels. The swimming hole was dark and muddy, and we sometimes saw snakes, but we jumped in anyway.
I generated
the following sentences using Rylant’s words as the pattern:
When I was young in Green Valley, we rode our banana seat bikes across the railroad tracks and through the back alleys, carrying our towels around our necks. The city pool was crowded, and sometimes little kids peed in the shallow end, but we jumped in anyway.
One Little Word Wednesday: Thread
Kids really say the most amazing things. Yesterday in a third grade class, I introduced the students to writing snapshots. I used Barry Lane's ideas about how details are like boxes inside boxes and writers zoom in with their words like photographers zoom in with their cameras. I read aloud samples from wonderful authors and shared some of my own writing. Using a slide show of images on the smart board as inspiration, the kids made their first attempts at writing their own snapshots. It wasn't easy for them. I didn't expect it be. I told them that they had to try to push through their struggle, like lifting a heavy weight or running a long distance. They had to try. All the students shared one sentence from their snapshot. I heard similes, great hooks, and complex sentences. Then they shared their whole snapshot with someone near them. After the lesson, two excited boys came up to me before heading out to lunch recess. The first one said, "I know what I could do! I could go back to my book I'm making and add a snapshot and put a simile in it." I was stunned. This young writer was beginning to weave together all the threads of the lessons we had done together throughout the trimester. The other little boy plum blew me away. He said, "Writing is fun. I used to like gym but now I like writing better." He actually thought that writing was more fun than gym. I couldn't agree more.
She Still Needs Me
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| Sam's bedside table |
When we picked Sam up at college before Christmas, after she had
finished her last exam, she was sick with tonsillitis. She had been to the
health clinic on campus a few days before with 103 degree temperature. They prescribed Amoxil, the same
medicine she had taken in liquid form for her ear infections as a preschooler. Once
at home, Sam complained about swallowing the fat pills and how much they hurt
going down. The pills were pretty big. When I peered down my daughter’s throat
with the flashlight, her tonsils looked like pieces of cauliflower, all
inflamed and purulent. Her right and left tonsils met in the middle, touching
her uvula. When she talked, her voice had the same hypo-nasal quality she used
to have when she got strep back in middle school. When Sam was in sixth grade,
she had a few months where she got strep over and over. I could always hear it
in her voice before the sore throat would even start. I’d take her to the
doctor, they would run the strep test, and it would come out negative. Within
two days, her fever would spike to 102 or 103 and back to the doctor we would
go. She couldn’t wouldn’t swallow pills so we had to
get the pink liquid.
Sam spent
the better part of winter break in bed sleeping, sipping tea, and eating
pudding. She seemed to get better for a while and then after Christmas, her
symptoms returned. Off we went to the urgent care on a Saturday night and this
time she got a Z-pack. More days in bed, sleeping, texting her friends, and sipping
7-Up with a straw. The nice thing about her being sick was that I didn’t have
to worry about where she was. She didn’t leave her crap all over the house. She
didn’t demand to use the car to go shopping in Toledo or visit friends in Ann Arbor.
She even spent New Year’s Eve at home sitting on the couch watching Dick Clark.
This may sound weird but it was one of the pleasantest breaks I’ve spent with
my daughter in recent memory. It felt good to take care of her. And she didn't mind me doing it.
Mentor Sentence Monday: More Brian Selznick
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| Amazon link |
Another one of my favorite books by Brian Selznick is The Boy of a Thousand Faces. His sentences are fun to imitate and give young writers great models for creating more complex sentences of their own. The opening line from The Boy of a Thousand Faces is a wonderful hook to mimic.
Selznick’s
words:
Sentences I generated using Selznick’s words as inspiration:After the crowd lit their torches and chased the phantom into the river, after the hunchback met his death in the darkness of the tower, and after the creature disappeared back into its black lagoon, Alonzo King went to bed.
After the grandparents
finished their cheesecake and coffee, after the cousins played unruly games of
Scrabble, euchre, and spoons, and after the aunts and daughters washed up most
of the dishes, everyone left and house went quiet.
After her
hair was washed and conditioned, after it was dried and straightened, and after
the blond strands were sprayed in place, Samantha sat in the red chair in the
living room and waited for the doorbell.
One Little Word Wednesday: Thread
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| This is actually a photo of my thread drawer after editing it in Picnik. |
I was
supposed to get myself to bed early on Tuesday evening. Didn’t happen. The
phone bill arrived in the mail. My son was significantly over on his minutes
which necessitated a discussion. My daughter was considering studying abroad
next year. More discussion. The Iowa Caucuses were yesterday evening. Lots more
discussion between me and my husband. I had planned to spend a quiet evening
reading blogs, writing comments, and composing a post for today that had
something to do with thread, which is my one little word. My brain was fried from all the talk. As I wrote, I
began to think about the nature of oral discussion and how different it is from
texts, tweets, emails, or writing comments on a blog.
Comments on blogs, even when threaded (ahhhh, there is the link to thread) feel very different than verbal conversations. Talking with living breathing people can be tiring. Then again, maybe it was the topics and who I was talking with that drained my desire to write or do anything else on Tuesday. While
trying to compose this post I was interrupted by both of my teenagers several
times. I guess I should have been glad they wanted to talk to me at all. Then my husband decided I should watch him watch the TV then pouted when I didn't drop everything for this obviously thrilling activity. By the end of the evening my energy was thread thin.
An Easy Writing Celebration: Gallery Walk
I can’t stop
thinking about Tytiana. Right after Thanksgiving, I started a fresh coaching
cycle in a third grade class during their writing workshop. We only had a few
weeks until Christmas vacation and I wanted the students to have the
opportunity to celebrate their writing before the break. The students, their
teacher, and I decided to use their quick writes about “hands” and turn them
into finished pieces. Some kids wrote about
their own hands, the hands of a parent or sibling, or Santa’s hands. The format
for the celebration was very simple. The kids put their fancied-up “hand” writing
in the middle of their cleared off desks then stood quietly nearby. We had invited
another class, administrators, secretaries, and some teachers to attend the
gallery walk the week before. As guests
arrived, they signed in and browsed the pieces at their leisure. They were free
to pick up the writing, read it, and ask the writers questions. After about
fifteen minutes or so, the teacher and I asked the attendees, as a group, what
stuck with them about the pieces they had read or seen. The guests noticed that even though everyone
had written about hands, all the pieces were different. Many of the visitors noticed that the writers
had used similes. Lots of compliments. Lots of smiles. Then our visitors were thanked and they
departed. Quick and painless. As soon as everyone left, the class, their
teacher, and I gathered at the carpet to debrief. The kids were bursting with
excitement. One little girl, Tytiana, a decidedly reluctant writer, was smiling
so wide I thought her cheeks were going to pop.
“Tytiana,
you are smiling so much! Are you happy?”
(enthusiastic
head nod)
“Did it feel
good to share your writing with Mr. P’s class?”
(another
enthusiastic head nod)
“Did you
want to tell why it felt so good?”
(animated
head nod and a big breath in)
“Wellllllllll,
this girl read myyyyyyy writing.”
“So, why was
this so wonderful for you, Tytiana?”
(big breath
in)
“Welllll, she
is in my cheernastics class annnnnnnd, usually . . . she doesn’t even notice me. Today . . .
she did!”
I looked
over at Tytiana’s teacher biting my lip and swallowing hard. Tytianna
continued.
“She never
even talked to me before. (pause) Cuz, IIIIIIIII’m like on the bottommmm of the
pyramid, yunno, and she’s on top cuz she’s smaller.”
Tytiana
struggles in so many ways. But that day was different. Tytiana wasn’t
struggling. She was noticed. She was noticed and smiled at and respected. And
by the way, her writing has amazing voice!
Mentor Sentence Monday: More Hugo Cabret
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| Text for word cloud came from page 165 of The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick |
The
following sentences are from the opening paragraph to the eighth chapter on page 165.
After making his morning rounds with the clocks, Hugo showed up at the toy booth the next day prepared to work. He could feel the cogs and wheels in his head spinning in different directions. On moment he felt hopeful that he'd get his notebook back, the next he felt angry and resentful.
The
following are sentences I generated using Selznick’s patterns:
After
collecting the empty cups, dessert plates, and pop cans downstairs, Mary headed
to the basement prepared to face an even bigger mess.
After making
the rounds at the usual bars, Ray showed up at the Someday Saloon prepared to
deepen his level of inebriation. He could feel the boozy blanket begin to warm
and calm his brain.
After making
their morning rounds with the litter boxes, Roxy, Fred, and Tiger showed up in the
kitchen prepared to eat breakfast.
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